Last week the UK Supreme Court ruled that sex as listed in the Equality Act 2010 will now be defined as a person's observed sex at birth. This news was met by celebration by 'Gender Criticals' or 'TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists)', or more accurately, bigots who hate trans people, whilst the trans community, their allies, and anyone with an ounce of common sense saw this as a terrible decision that would have long reaching effects that would harm a wide range of people.
As a trans person living in the UK I was shocked by this news, but not hugely surprised. Over the last decade I'd watched as trans people went from largely ignored, allowed to get on with our lives, to being the flavour of the month minority group who were celebrated for being 'brave', to having become so demonised that small but influential groups of bigots have been campaigning non-stop to have us made into third class citizens. This ruling was something that should shock and sicken, and has for a lot of people, but for those of us who have been living this everyday it felt like the natural next step in this campaign to eradicate trans people.
That language might sound inflammatory to some, and I'm sure that people are already scoffing at the word and accusing me of 'overreacting', but that's what's been happening. People want the trans population gone. We're something that they hate, something that they're frightened of, something that they take disgust in, and these people have dedicated their lives to erasing us. For now it's about doing it legally, removing rights and protections, but I'm sure if allowed to continue this way it will progress to removing the ability to transition at all, with the end goal being trans people existing outside of the closet being impossible.
When I first started writing on this blog it was an outlet for me, with me having only just come out of the closet to myself. I'd been struggling with severe depression for most of my life, and I didn't know why I felt that way until one day something just clicked inside me and I realised I was trans. I came out to a small circle of people, and I was awaiting the chance to medically transition, and I felt like I was stuck in a limbo with no outlet; so I started writing. I wrote about whatever I wanted, with no real direction in mind. It could be writing about a film I'd watched, about being trans, or about personal experiences and hopes for the future.
Over the years I kept writing, and I wrote more about being trans and about things happening to trans people around the world. I was asked to contribute to a number of trans focused outlets, and I gained some attention online. Sadly, being openly, vocally trans online can draw negative attention, and through the combination of threats and abuse, constant negative stories, and my own personal issues at the time, I burned out. I got to the point where I had to step back from writing about trans issues, and I focused on other work. I ended up working with an entertainment outlet, where my book reviews took over much of my writing time, and I even ended up on the editorial team. Trans issues never left my life, never became something that I stopped caring about, but life kind of shifted them to being something I didn't write about myself anymore.
I've always felt a little guilty about that. I know I was never anyone important, that I never mattered, I wasn't some big figure in the trans community, or even a small one. I was just one voice that occasionally spoke up that may have been doing something good. But despite that, I felt like I'd let the trans community down and that by writing about frivolous things like comics and movies over the struggles of my community I'd done something that I should feel ashamed about, and I was always a little bit afraid of trying to go back to doing something. I tried to do a little, such as writing about the lives lost in the community on Trans Day of Remembrance, but it felt like it wasn't enough, and I felt guilty for even trying.
But then last week rolled around, and trans people in the UK lost their rights. The bigots were able to sway the court to their side. Trans people were excluded from proceedings, lies were allowed to be told about us, and we lost rights and protections. Overnight we became third class citizens, a large part of our existence was made illegal, and our futures became dark and uncertain. That, coupled with images and videos of bigots drinking champagne, cheering and celebrating outside of court, and smoking their victory cigars as they lauded the this ruling over us as a victory, broke something inside me.
I hadn't felt this depressed in almost a decade. Things felt hopeless. I didn't know if I was going to be safe outside my home anymore. I was suddenly back to being that newly out trans woman, afraid for her future, crying herself to sleep, drinking to numb the pain, and wondering if life was worth living anymore. And this is as someone with a support network around her, someone with safety, who even if things become worse will likely be okay. I couldn't imagine how hard last week was for those who didn't have that, for those newly out, for those without family and friends, for those without a secure home.
Since the ruling came out I've gone from feeling utterly broken to feeling enraged. I look at the world and I feel so much anger that we've gotten to this point. I hate that the people who hate us have such elevated voices, that they have so much power to influence the world for the worse. I hate that they've twisted the narrative so much that trans existence is painted as a threat, that we've been made into the monsters that prey upon 'real' women and girls, and that women's rights have been so harmed in the fight against us. And I hate that they make me feel so much hate. I want to hope for a better tomorrow, for a world where trans people need not be afraid for their futures, where we're allowed to just exist and be ourselves without being made into monsters or victims. But his isn't a time for hope alone, hope without action won't do anything.
I'm just one voice, a voice who doesn't really matter, but I'm going to be using my voice again. I let myself and my community down for a long time by doing nothing. I'm one voice, and one voice alone can be forgotten, and can go unheard. But if all of us start shouting then those lone voices become something more, and we can start making ourselves heard. I will do what I can, even if all I can do is start talking about trans people and our fight more. I wish I could do more, I wish I wasn't so sick all the time, that I could take to the streets as part of the protests, that I could take more action, but I will use the platform I have, as little as it is.
I want to say that I'm sorry though. I've been content to do little for so long, to allow others to take up the cause, to shy away and keep myself safe and focus on my self. Yes, I've been sick, and dealing with my disability and the impact it's had on my life has taken up a lot of my time, but I can't use that as an excuse, because those coming for us won't give me a free pass because of that. I should never have stopped talking about trans people. I should never have let my voice falter. So, I'm sorry. But that stops now. This is a fight, and I will do whatever I can to help in that fight.
I don't know what that means for my blog, how it's going to change things for those who've been reading it for all this time with it becoming a mixture of entertainment articles and trans focused writing. I don't know if it will lose me readers and subscribers, if it might even lose me relationships with the people I work with, if it will cost me the opportunity to get review copies of things and it effectively ends my ability to do what I've been doing for years now; because standing up for the trans community and drawing attention to our fight is more important than those things.
I don't know how long this road is going to be, or how hard this fight will end up, but it's not a fight I can just ignore. I will never stop being me, I will never stop existing as long as I'm alive, no matter how much bigots try to make this world unsafe for trans people. Trans lives matter. We exist, and we will keep fighting.
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